Travelling Solo Again

Sue and I were complete overachievers this morning, we needed to have the rental car returned by 11:30 and were here in Lecce by 10:30, hanging out for a caffe lecesse, after which I bid her a fond farewell, it's been great, and she's on the train to Bari to fly back to Scotland tonight.

And I'm in a lovely new apartment (grazie again Danica and Samuel for the recommendation) in Lecce - home of my new favourite coffee. I'm in the old town (always stay in the old town) in a 2nd floor apartment looking over the whole of Lecce, with a terasa on my floor, and a rooftop terasa on the top of the building with a jacuzzi (what??). There is a beautiful old tile inlay in the wooden floor - the building is a palazzo which has been in the family for 400 years. Seriously. Even the street name is evocative.

I'm surrounded by palazzos and basilicas, but at this moment, what I really want is a supermarcato, and a bottle of laundry 'Vanish'. This morning I was eating cactus fruit (Prickly Pear or, in Italian Fico o'India - because Christopher Columbus thought he had discovered the Indies. Kind of strikes me a bit arrogant that he gave it a name - I'm sure the locals at the time already had a name for it... and clearly he was lost) - anyway, I digress, but I now have fruit stains down my linen dress!

These cactus grow everywhere, obviously ideally suited to this arid climate where it only rains about 500mm per year (sorry Auckland).

You see these in the gardens, the fields - and some single leaves strung up on walls with the fruit still doing very nicely thank you. 

I just saw some ceramic versions of the leaves and fruit. It tastes vaguely like a cross between a passionfruit and a pawpaw? Not too sweet, but clearly with the ability to stain!

We were given a plate of these by the castle owners, together with a plate of the lushest sweetest figs, so ripe in the middle that it was almost like eating fig jam. En plus, and moreover, various trees in the garden at Tricase had figs on the trees which had ripened and then dried on the branches - organic dried figs. 

A little personal detail  - some people panic if they have no wine at home, some if there is no chocolate at home, my go to thing is dried figs, so finding them in the garden was my idea of ideal.

I'm heading off for a haircut - looking a bit wooly after two months of heat and swimming. l'll report back  - first impressions of Lecce - Pretty Lush!